Austin Tichenor recommends an adventure novel starring a young Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, who uncover a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth.
Posts Categorized: Shakespeare-in-the-world
Robert Eggers’s “The Northman” is not an adaptation of “Hamlet,” but a film in conversation with Shakespeare’s play, Austin Tichenor writes.
Richard Schoch examines the first published image of William Shakespeare’s birthplace from 1769, reflecting on the transformation of a humble home into a significant tourist site in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Austin Tichenor draws connections between Hamlet and Batman, noting the range of interpretations.
Did you know that the Beatles once performed the “Pyramus and Thisbe” scene from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”? Although they mainly stick to Shakespeare’s script, the moments when they play with the text stand out.
“Nathan the Wise” and “The Merchant of Venice” are very different works, though religious tension is a subject in each, as is the potential for love and loss, wealth and poverty, bloodshed and peace. But it is the character of the Jew featured in each text that most causes scholars to focus on the plays’ differences.
A Polish acting troupe outwits the Nazis using Shakespeare codes and theatrical smarts in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 film “To Be or Not to Be,” an audacious comedy filmed as Hitler was devastating Europe. Almost the definition of a joke told too soon, the movie succeeds — and is still vital, 80 years later — by finding the tonal sweet spot between fanciful comedy and grim reality, and by presenting Shakespeare as the ultimate plea for humanity.
Austin Tichenor makes the case for why we should say “Shakespeare is for anyone who wants him” instead of “Shakespeare is for everyone.”
Keith Hamilton Cobb reflects on his play American Moor and how the questions he received in response to it led to the development of the Untitled Othello Project, a deeply scrutinizing exploration of Shakespeare’s text.
Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story isn’t a mere remake of the 1961 film or a filmic version of the 1957 stage musical in which a love affair between two teenagers divided by rival New York gangs, the Sharks and the Jets, ends in tragedy. Instead, it is a layering of theatrical devices, a Hollywood riff… Continue Reading »
